Stone adze points to ancient burial rituals in Ireland
Ceremonial tool found with cremated remains in island’s earliest known gravesite
![stone adze](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/110916_bb_irishburial_feat.jpg?fit=860%2C460&ssl=1)
RITUAL EDGE Microscopic study of this stone adze, found in a more than 9,000-year-old pit near Ireland’s River Shannon, suggests that it played a key role in ceremonies surrounding an ancient hunter-gatherer’s cremation and burial.
A. Little et al/Cambridge Archaeological Journal 2016